perhaps the vividness of my dress—that makes the drivers pull at their reins
and keep from running me down. On, on, I go. I think once a dog barks at
me, and snaps at my skirt. I think boys run beside me, for a time—two
boys, or three—shrieking to see me stagger. ‘You,’ I say, holding my hand
against my side, ‘will you tell me, where is Holywell Street? Which way, to
Holywell Street?’—but at the sound of my voice, they fall back.
I go more slowly then. I cross a busier road. The buildings are grander
here—and yet, two streets beyond them the houses are shabby. Which way
must I go? I will ask again, I will ask in a moment; for now, I will only
walk, put streets and streets between myself and Mrs Sucksby, Richard, Mr
Ibbs. What matter if I grow lost? I am lost already . . .
Then I cross the mouth of a rising passage of yellow brick and see at the
end of it, dark and humped above the tips of broken roofs, its gold cross
gleaming, the church of St Paul’s. I know it, from illustrations; and I think
Holywell Street is near it. I turn, pick up my skirts, make for it. The passage
smells badly; but the church seems close. So close, it seems! The brick
turns green, the smell grows worse. I climb, then suddenly sink, emerge in
open air and almost stumble. I have expected a street, a square. Instead, I
am at the top of a set of crooked stairs, leading down to filthy water. I have
reached the shore of the river. St Paul’s is close, after all; but the whole of
the width of the Thames is flowing between us.
I stand and gaze at it, in a sort of horror, a sort of awe. I remember
walking beside the Thames, at Briar. I remember seeing it seem to fret and
worry at its banks: I thought it longed—as I did—to quicken, to spread. I
did not know it would spread to this. It flows, like poison. Its surface is
littered with broken matter—with hay, with wood, with weed, with paper,
with tearings of cloth, with cork and tilting bottles. It moves, not as a river
moves, but as a sea: it heaves. And where it breaks, against the hulls of
boats, and where it is thrown, upon the shore, and about the stairs and the
walls and wooden piers that rise from it, it froths like sour milk.
It is an agony of water and of waste; but there are men upon it, confident
as rats—pulling the oars of rowing-boats, tugging at sails. And here and
there, at the river’s edge—bare-legged, bent-backed—are women, girls and
boys, picking their way through the churning litter like gleaners in a field.